


Clarity / Velveteen

by Ladycat



Series: Happy Endings [8]
Category: Angel: the Series
Genre: Drabble, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-13
Updated: 2014-02-13
Packaged: 2018-01-12 05:52:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1182669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ladycat/pseuds/Ladycat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A pair of Spike/Connor drabbles</p>
            </blockquote>





	Clarity / Velveteen

**Clarity**

"You're always watching," Connor murmurs. "Are you ever going to tell me what you see?"

No response, but then, he doesn't expect one. Not now, anyway. Sleep holds him heavy and still and for all he cares about the answer, it’s a distant hunger. Not something to really worry about. Answers aren't really his thing.

"You're pretty." The answer comes grudging, whispered like a song he only vaguely recognizes. A far off strain he can't quite place. "Not bein' insulting,” Spike adds, bristling like Connor’s frowned or moved. Or thought about moving. “You are. Slender as a girl. Pretty as one."

"I should be insulted."

"But you aren't."

He isn't. Only the pillow he's buried in knows for certain, though.

"Clean. Never really sure what that meant. Means. Fits you, though. Clean lines, sharp. You're made of circles like something endless."

Okay, that's more insulting that the pretty as a girl comment. The pillow creases cool against his mouth, warming only when he breathes on it.

"Not saying this right. You shouldn't've asked."

Probably not. These aren’t his kinds of questions, not who and what weapon. Still, his mouth opens and "Keep going," sneaks out before he can stop it.

"So I can insult you some more? Don't look so innocent, it really doesn't suit. 'Cept how it does. You don't look like a creature born of night's hellspawn. Don't look like a brat who's been party to murder."

He loves him for not saying 'death'. Connor's aided a lot of death. That doesn't bother him.

"Even when you don't shave, like now." A cool finger rubs sparks along his jaw, bristles forced against grain. "Dunno who you got _that_ from, since himself can barely manage a goatee, but I like it. Wish it made you look older. Half your friends think I'm cradle-robbing."

Connor smiles, kissing the tip when the finger ventures close enough, because Spike is _so_ cradle-robbing. Only not in ways his friends will ever understand. Not in ways that matter.

Opening his eyes is difficult but he manages it, squinting past diffused afternoon light to look into eyes bluer than the hidden sky, bluer than the blood that shimmers beneath his skin, bluer than anything. It's all he sees, when _he_ looks. Blue like trust, like the depths of the ocean spreading out to endless horizon. Everything else - the trappings everyone else always comments on - they're irrelevant. Just this: blue forever.

"C'mere," he whispers. He manages to move only a finger or two, but that's more than usual. Necessary.

The bed is suddenly full, legs tangling with familiar ease as a mouth settles just as sweet over Connor's, less a kiss and more a promise of breath. "What do you see when you watch?" he asks again.

"You," Spike says, in a voice that says _home_.

**Velveteen**

Spike doesn't say anything when Connor finds it. It's not like he's ashamed - and for once, that isn't posturing inside his own head. He isn't ashamed.

Mostly.

Connor turns the tiny rag figure carefully, aware of the threads that tuft wildly and the faded buttons, no longer black but more of a cracked, marbled grey, stuck on mostly with tenacity. It's a silly thing, really. Nothing like the pretty, porcelain princesses that Dru had carted around with her for over a century.

"He have a name?"

"She." The word slips out before he can stop it. All right, so he's blood well ashamed. Connor just looks at him, though, still as a motionless pond. "Named her Mary Martha and no, I'm not explaining why to you. It's too complicated."

"I know. Hey, I'm not teasing you - I get it. You're old and British. I'm not going to get the nuances."

Spike squints. That's.. surprisingly understanding from a brat who usually spends his time quietly not-pestering Spike for every bit of William that he can remember. Which he can. All too bloody clearly.

"Right," he says, feeling oddly cheated. "That's. Yeah. Anyway."

"I wasn't snooping." Connor, apparently, wasn’t getting the ‘change the topic, brat’ memo – or maybe he was, since he’s breathless and a little red as he looks across the room. "I wasn't. The trunk was open with the first layer removed and she was right there at the top, about to fall. I figured you'd be madder if I let her."

"Maybe." The bed dips, suddenly, and Spike turns in time to see Connor walk across on hand and knees, careful of the cargo he cradles, before both are wormed into Spike's arms, a pair of heads resting on his unbeating heart.

The stillness is almost unbearable.

But Connor, brilliant, grey-eyed Connor, wise-warrior who makes Spike think of gods and spiders, looks up at him despite the awkward angle. "I had a rabbit. It wasn't velveteen, or anything, but I would pretend a lot. My mom thought it was really cute until I really _did_ get really sick. Then it wasn't so funny."

The reference goes past him. It doesn't matter. Spike curls his arms around heat and remembered warmth that'd last him through numerous illnesses of his own. "You got sick?" His voice sounds so fucking rusty.

"Once. Well, probably more. All babies get sick, even hardly sort-of-mystical ones like me. But once it was so bad that it bled through, into the illusion. With my mom, I went to the hospital and had jello and nurses that pinched my cheeks a lot, and my sister was _really_ nice to me.”

“And with Holtz?”

They’re always curled like this, when _he_ comes up. Connor pressed close against him like Spike can ground him, keep him from drifting off into the aether of his own mind. 

“I don’t remember that much. But… Holtz told me, later, that he was afraid I’d die. I got better, though.” A twist and straight, flat hair crests into Spike's vision, followed by eyes that glow like crystal. "Spike, it was okay. I got better."

"You don't get sick, though." Neither does Spike, not anymore. Not ever again. "Not often."

"'Not often' isn't 'never'." Connor shakes his head, as if amused, but he's serious when he leans forward to bite Spike's lower lip. "Kids get sick, Spike. It's normal."

Of course it is. But William lived before antibiotics and doctors that treated kids with lollipops and hands that’d been washed at least three times. "I was sickly, a lot," he hears himself saying, and winches with his mouth still moving. "As a kid. My mum, she knitted me Mary Martha when I was eight. I was... we didn't have money for medicine, not then. Didn't even have money for the rags she was knitting."

It's so easy to be back there. Vampires didn’t get colds, but suddenly his throat is tickling and it’s lumpy when he swallows, a scratchy ache that echoes along his bones, body so flushed with heat he used to dream about burning up, about tearing apart at the seams, just like the little figure his much was making with scraps of cloth that she’d used to wipe his face with, washed to nothing, and buttons her own coat needed. _Hush, William,_ she’d whispered, smiling like her eyes weren’t full of tears, pulling the stitches tight. _They’re for you. Just rest, love, try to sleep a little more…_

Something cold kisses his cheek. Safe in the darkness behind his eyes, Spike offers a tired smile. "Rather have a real kiss."

Connor smiles, a bright curl of joy he doesn't need open eyes to see, and presses his lips where the buttons had just been. "I have _The Velveteen Rabbit_ here. Want me to read it to you?"

Spike nods. There's a careful dance where Connor presses Mary Martha into his hand, cautious of her age and grace, and watches while Spike curls his fingers automatically around her limp body, elbow pressed out like a wing and yarn hair-do just brushing his chin.

There’s no thought in the posture. Spike just _does_ it and only starts feeling ashamed afterwards.

Connor, though, shakes his head and mutters something that sounds like _cute_ \- guaranteed to keep Spike pinned where he is – and goes off for the kids book that he has for some reason.

Probably the same reason Spike’s carried Mary Martha over two personality changes and a bit more than a century’s time.

When Connor comes back with a brightly colored book swinging against his hip, he doesn't burrow back in where Mary is. No, it's Spike who burrows, ashamed but not nearly enough to stop, head on Connor's stomach so he can hear more than just the words.

"This is why I can't eat chocolate bunnies," Connor says, out of no where, flashing him a grin as he opens to the first page.


End file.
